This section provides background information related to the present disclosure which is not necessarily prior art.
In a Long Term Evolution (LTE) system, a Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (MBMS) is also called an evolution Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (eMBMS), and is mainly to realize broadcast and multicast services in the LTE system. Usually, one MBMS service area includes more than one Multicast Broadcast Single Frequency Network (MBSFN) area and one MBSFN area may include one or more cells.
In the MBMS of LTE Release 9 (R9), one cell belongs to only one MBSFN area. There are no overlapped MBSFN areas. There is only one Multicast Control Channel (MCCH) in one cell, and the MCCHs of different cells in the same MBSFN area can be combined where the MCCH is a point-to-multipoint downlink channel which is adapted to transmit control information of the MBMS area from network side to a UE.
In the MBMS of LTE R10, there are overlapped MBSFN areas. Some cells may belong to two or more MBSFN areas at the same time. However, the method for transmitting the control information of MBMS in the prior art is that a base station transmits the control information of various cells' MBSFN area through the various cells' respective MCCHs, so that when a UE enters an MBMS network of LTE R10 and the services to be acquired by the UE belong to different MBSFN areas, the UE fails to work normally because the UE can only work on the MCCH of the current cell, i.e., the cell in which the UE currently camps on or connects to.